Why I am holding out for the M6 MacBook Professional

Apple’s put itself in an uncommon state of affairs with the MacBook Pro. An up to date mannequin with an M5 processor is predicted by the top of 2025, or in early 2026 on the newest, and can most likely draw within the regular crowd of customers searching for a spec bump. However the firm can be rumored to be engaged on an M6 model already, which may ship in the direction of the top of 2026 — so hypothetically, you could possibly find yourself shopping for a brand-new laptop in March, solely to have it outclassed six or seven months later.

Rumors declare that the M6 mannequin shall be a significant redesign, by which case it might be price ready to see what it’d appear to be. For some folks, nonetheless, the M5 mannequin may nonetheless find yourself being the higher deal. All of it is dependent upon how a lot efficiency you want, the specter of worth hikes, and whether or not Apple has discovered its lesson from prior MacBook overhauls.

What Apple has deliberate, and why it might be an issue

Haunted by butterfly ghosts

Whether or not or not they arrive to fruition, a number of of the M6 Professional’s rumored modifications ought to generate zero controversy. Primarily, I am considering of the transfer to a notchless OLED show, which is lengthy overdue. A notch has by no means made sense on a laptop computer, not when Apple may’ve simply stuffed cameras into the bezel. OLED, in the meantime, has been accessible on Home windows laptops for years, together with my current gaming rig. That includes the tech in a $1,600-plus skilled laptop computer ought to be de facto.

The pc may additionally get a 5G mobile choice, which might be helpful for the minority of customers who do not need to tether to their smartphone once they’re away from Wi-Fi. Maybe the wildest declare is that Apple would possibly add a touchscreen. I’ve my doubts about that one — whereas that is one other know-how Home windows PCs have supplied for a very long time, Apple has been fairly proof against the thought of a touchscreen Mac, preferring to steer these consumers in the direction of an iPad as a substitute. Nonetheless, it could be a welcome addition, particularly if it included Apple Pencil help for illustration and photograph enhancing.

My actual concern includes discuss that the M6 Professional shall be thinner and lighter than its predecessor. On the floor, that sounds just like the least controversial factor doable. A 14-inch M4 mannequin weighs 3.4 kilos (about 1.5kg), which is sufficient to make journey and commuting worse if you happen to’ve already acquired different issues dragging you down. Actually, nobody likes scuffling with their laptop computer in the course of a TSA screening.

In Apple-speak, nonetheless, “thinner and lighter” typically interprets into design compromises. Certainly, that is precisely what occurred to the MacBook Professional within the late 2010s. To streamline the pc, Apple eliminated a few of its ports, even though Professionals typically kind the core of a workstation. That was doubtlessly acceptable if you happen to had a hub or a dock — however on high of that, the corporate switched to its notorious “butterfly” keyboard design, meant to maintain MacBook keyboards as slim as doable. Faults with the tech had been so extreme that Apple was hit with a class-action lawsuit, and adopted a particular restore program because it transitioned again to scissor switches. My spouse can attest to how horrible the butterfly keyboards had been — her MacBook Air nonetheless has one, and making an attempt to kind any long-form textual content on it’s a nightmare.

Hopefully Apple has discovered its lesson, however there is no assure of that. Certainly, it appears to be making an analogous mistake with the iPhone 17 Air, stripping away battery life and a secondary digital camera within the title of constructing the thinnest and lightest iPhone doable. It is a solution to a query nobody requested, most likely as a lot about slashing manufacturing prices as the rest. Taking the identical knife to the M6 MacBook Professional may scare folks into monitoring down M4 and M5 methods as a substitute.

And the hits simply hold coming

Tariff wars and the diminishing worth of Apple Silicon

Apple

Tech corporations typically elevate costs alongside redesigned {hardware}, whether or not out of necessity, or just because they’ve needed to for a very long time. Contemplate the Nintendo Swap 2, which lately launched for $450, whereas the unique Swap was simply $300 when it shipped in 2017. Adjusted for inflation, that is nonetheless over $50 further.

Apple may simply fall into the identical boat, given the continuing affect of the Trump administration’s tariff conflict. MacBook Professionals are manufactured in international locations like China and Vietnam — each of which have been slapped with excessive import tariffs. That might spike the price of present fashions, not to mention overhauled ones with touchscreens, OLED panels, and/or 5G modems. The truth is, outdoors of Apple consuming the fee, the one methods out of this lure are import exemptions, renegotiated commerce offers, or Apple in some way relocating MacBook manufacturing domestically. That final choice is extraordinarily unlikely, regardless of Trump’s protests.

The one US-based Apple manufacturing facility in the meanwhile is a Mac Professional plant in Austin, Texas, and constructing a brand new one able to serving American MacBook demand would possibly take years, assuming there’s sufficient native expertise to employees it. The American electronics manufacturing sector is a shadow of what you may discover abroad.

Tariffs would not be such a difficulty for Apple if it weren’t for the truth that most individuals simply do not want an M6 processor. An M1 Max chip remains to be greater than ok for video enhancing, and full overkill if you happen to’re making an attempt to run Safari, Mail, or Pages. There are common advantages to newer chips, after all, similar to higher sport efficiency, and sooner crunching of AI capabilities, however you do not want the bleeding edge to see them. I can think about many consumers taking a look at an M6 Professional however then deciding to trace down a used or refurbished mannequin as a substitute.

If you happen to insist on shopping for new {hardware}, the most secure choice could also be to choose up an M5 mannequin within the subsequent few months, as I recommended in the beginning of this piece. Finally, although, we’re all going to should play it by ear on whether or not Apple’s subsequent huge redesign is smart.